


To Have A Brother

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time Klaus feels his conscience, it is while he makes Stefan go ripper. He realizes that this isn't what he wants to have with Stefan on so he begins to change for him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Have A Brother

Klaus had not departed Chicago immediately after he realised that Mikael had managed to track him down. He stayed long enough to witness Mikael asking Stefan if he had any knowledge of either Klaus or Rebekah, and Stefan saying he had never seen either of them. The thing was, even had Klaus not compelled Stefan to forget, he would most likely have denied knowing them anyway. He’d proved he was loyal. But Klaus couldn’t be sure that Mikael wouldn’t just compel Stefan into revealing the truth anyway.

No, it was better this way. But it was a pity; it was true what Klaus had said. Being with Stefan had reminded him of what it was like to have a brother. 

Bourbon Street, New Orleans, 1912.

Klaus clinked his glass against Kol’s as the two brothers watched Rebekah on the dance floor, dancing with some guy they hadn’t seen before.

“I’m bored,” Kol yawned. “At least Bekah’s having fun.”

“Bekah’s a strumpet,” Klaus took a sip of his whisky, before banging his glass down on the table rather harder than was necessary.

“What’s the matter? Have I touched a nerve, brother dear?” Kol smirked.

Klaus ignored him. Kol thought he knew everything, but when it came to this, he really didn’t have a clue. “I would have thought that after a thousand years of being a vampire, you would have known better than to turn up in a bar wearing the remains of last night’s date, brother dear,” he replied instead.

“Shut up,” Kol hissed; Rebekah and her friend were approaching their table. Rebekah introduced him, giving some generic name that Klaus immediately forgot. What was the point of remembering, when they weren’t going to see him again anyway? Kol hastily adjusted his jacket to cover the bloodstain which Klaus had drawn attention to, as Klaus got up to get the group another round of drinks. There was quite a long line at the bar, but luckily for Klaus, he was able to make people forget that they’d been ahead of him and the line melted away before his eyes.

Rebekah’s date was in full flow when he got back, saying something about how he wondered whether some kind of curfew was likely to be put into place “Y’all know with those missing girls, and the animal attack.”

Rebekah jumped visibly. “Animal attack?”

“Sure, my neighbour was just telling me. They found a couple of girls who looked like they’d been savaged by a wild animal, throats ripped clean out. I didn’t even know they had animals round here that could even do that.”

“Neither did I,” Klaus hissed, glaring at Kol. Rebekah, having realised what had happened, quickly took her date’s arm and started leading him away, asking if he’d met their friend Marcel or any of the rest of their group of friends.

“Animal attack, Kol?” Klaus glared at his brother.

“What?” Kol shrugged. “I was bored. I needed entertainment, which is something you and Marcel didn’t provide enough of when you built this Godforsaken hole.”

“Well, you’d better bloody hope that your idea of entertainment isn’t what brings Mikael here,” Klaus seized Kol by the shirt and spat into his face. “If what’s his name back there knows about it, then who’s to say he won’t get to hear about it too? Do you want to meet the same fate as Finn?”

Kol rolled his eyes. If Klaus hadn’t been making that exact threat so many times since 1114, he might have even taken it seriously. But after it having been used as an empty threat so many times, Kol just laughed it off. Klaus hadn’t carried out that threat against Elijah, after all, and God knew he’d thought he had reason at the time. And it wasn’t as if he’d actually daggered Finn himself, he’d just not bothered to undagger him along with everyone else. No, Kol wasn’t worried about Klaus at all.

Blah blah blah, Klaus wasn’t even fully listening. They’d had this argument enough times that he pretty much knew what Kol was going to say in response, right up to not being worried about him. Well, you should be, Klaus thought to himself. Because it wasn’t as empty a threat as Kol thought. 

 

Klaus stared around him at the remains of those who had once been his friends; Charles, Isabella, Gregory, Louisa, all had fallen victim to the wrath of Mikael. Marcel was not among the dead; Klaus could only assume that he had managed to hide himself away somewhere. They had all been loyal, Klaus thought, they would all have chosen death before they would have given him away.

“What happened here?” Kol had come up behind him, unseen. “My God, Nik, who killed them all?”

“You did,” Klaus spat.

“That’s crazy, Nik,” Rebekah attempted to intervene. “Kol can’t have done it. He’s been with me the entire time.”

“He may not have killed them himself, but their blood is on his hands,” Klaus snarled. “What were you thinking? Did you not understand that you would draw attention to us by leaving this trail of destruction in your wake everywhere you go?”

“It’s him,” Rebekah swallowed hard. “He’s found us.”

Kol looked nonplussed for a moment, but then quickly recovered himself. “And what if he has?” he blustered. “Maybe it’s time to show him he doesn’t frighten us any more.”

“You fool,” Klaus roared. “We were happy here. I built this whole town, I ruled it. I was king. And you have stolen this from me.” He turned his back upon Kol, towards Rebekah. “Now that he knows we’re in New Orleans, it’s only a matter of time before he finds us. We have to run.”

“What about this bloody idiot?” Rebekah asked.

“He’s taken everything from me,” Klaus snarled, drawing the white oak stake of his coat pocket.

“No, Nik!” Rebekah pleaded. “What happened to what we said? We stick together as one, always and forever.”

“That was before,” Klaus drove the stake into Kol’s chest calmly, showing no emotion as he did so, ignoring Rebekah’s pleading.

 

Yes, Klaus thought, there were aspects of his time in Chicago with Stefan which had reminded him of what it was like having Kol for a brother. But at the same time, Stefan was not Kol, and Klaus realised now that maybe he had lost sight of that. It may well be that he had underestimated Stefan’s ability to help him to escape Mikael, that he may not have been the risk to their safety that Klaus had feared. 

Kol had got it all so wrong; it was never Bekah that Klaus had loved. He realised now that it was Stefan. That was why he had daggered his sister; because Rebekah appeared to be succeeding where Klaus was failing. But he had made his choice to sacrifice their chance to be together. Escape from Mikael was more important at the time. But maybe one day, when he knew that things had died down and Mikael was no longer a threat to him, maybe then he would be able to make contact with Stefan again.

*****

 

It was being in Chicago with Stefan again that had made Klaus realise that he didn’t want it to be like this. He didn’t want Stefan to be with him because he was compelled; he wanted Stefan to have made the choice to be with Klaus, because he wanted Klaus. But it was clear to him that Stefan did not want the Klaus he saw before him. He did not want the ripper, the man so desperate to make his hybrids that he would trample on anyone. And Klaus also knew that he did not want to create another Kol, someone he would have to dagger but in this case would not be able to undagger.

Oh, Klaus knew that it would be so simple to just compel Stefan so that he would forget the fact that he hated what he knew of him, so he would forget his indiscretion with the doppelganger. But he understood now that this was not what he wanted. He wanted a Stefan who knew what he was doing and still wanted to be with Klaus anyway. But Stefan was never going to want the old Klaus, so there was nothing for it. Klaus would have to change for him.

 

Ugh, Klaus thought as he took his first sip of bunny. Give him human blood any day of the week. Stefan must really have been determined to punish himself for all the things he had done back then, Klaus thought, if he was willing to drink this. The temptation of the human blood was threatening to overcome him, but he stopped and asked himself, which was more important, the blood or Stefan? 

And Mystic Falls was boring, now that he’d made the decision to leave the doppelganger to live out the rest of her life with the other Salvatore brother and let Tyler Lockwood have the freedom of Mystic Falls (Klaus still thought he was a dick, but a dick that he no longer wished to pursue. Let him and Caroline be together, it was nothing to him now.) Bekah was determined to pursue a life of humanity with the dull quarterback and Klaus no longer cared; Elijah no longer wished anything to do with him; Kol was gone. There was only one attraction in Mystic Falls for him now: Stefan.

 

“You know, I really thought Damon was kidding when he told me.” Stefan struggled to hide his smirk. “Klaus Mikaelson, drinking from bunny.”

Klaus pursed his lips and spat. “God, what do you see in this? How can you choose to drink it?”

“I don’t,” Stefan pointed out. “It was just my way of weaning myself off human blood. And I know why I wanted to do that, but why are you drinking bunny? This is you, after all. In fact, things have been pretty quiet lately, I haven’t heard anything about you trying to create any more hybrids lately. Tyler’s even walking round the streets freely not worried that you’re after him any more. Don’t tell me you’re trying to stop yourself killing people.” 

Stefan had meant this as a joke, but the laughter died on his face when he saw the look on Klaus’s. “You actually are, aren’t you? Can I ask why?”

“Because that’s not who I want to be any more,” Klaus admitted. “Because I know that that’s not who you want me to be. And now I find myself turning into Elijah.” Klaus went on, shuddering. “My brother with the conscience, the one who always saw himself as so much more moral than the rest of us.”

“Not everything about being like Elijah is bad,” Stefan pointed out. “And you said yourself that one Kol was enough. But no, you don’t need to turn into Elijah. If I wanted him, I’d date him. But since when did you care about that? Klaus, I want you to be who you are, the person that makes you happy, not someone you think I want you to be. And drinking bunny, that isn’t you. If you don’t want to kill any more, just raid Damon’s supply of blood banks. Look, I know what happened with Kol,” he continued in a gentler voice. “Rebekah told me about it. And I get why you didn’t want me coming with you back then, in Chicago. You hadn’t known me that long then, how were you to know that I wouldn’t do something crazy like that to draw Mikael’s attention? The way I was back then, maybe it even was me. We’ll never know. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen again. You don’t need to change for me. Well, not so drastically. Maybe you could lay off with the werewolves, not turn them to hybrids.”

“Maybe I don’t need them so much now,” Klaus admitted. 

“Maybe you don’t,” Stefan replied. “But you don’t need to change your personality completely for me, either. If I really didn’t like the way you were, I wouldn’t be here. We’re not so very different, you and me. You said it yourself once, we’d both been infinitely alone. We don’t need to be any more. We have each other.”


End file.
